Matthieu Bonne is a man of extremes: the Belgian athlete previously swam 65 kilometers in one stretch along the coast of Belgium and completed eight Long Distance Triathlons in eight days on eight different Canary Islands. This year he has once again proved himself with a very extreme challenge: he traveled to America to bike no less than 3619 kilometers in only 7 days. That’s the longest distance ever (within one week, ed.) and he did it completely unsupported. “This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said afterwards.
On average, Bonne covered 517 kilometers per day and ended up breaking the previous world record by 29 kilometers. Per day Bonne spent about 17-19 hours on the bike and on the last day he even went over 20 hours. Per day he also conquered at least a thousand meters in altitude and Bonne regularly had to deal with bad weather. That was a major setback, as Bonne chose the location in the United States precisely because the weather there is usually nice.
“This is mentally by far the toughest thing I’ve ever done,” Bonne said afterwards. “Especially because of the bad weather conditions. It was also physically draining. We had specifically chosen the location in Arizona because there is normally little wind and precipitation here, but you can’t control nature. If you can’t go on riding because of that, you lose time in which you could otherwise ride miles. But, the goal was to break the record and we succeeded.”
